Guest Opinion

Antidepressants can save lives

My View • One family finds medication is the best medicine

By Sara Kirschenbaum

, Sep 21, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (2 Reader comments)

Last week was National Suicide Prevention Week. Earlier this month, a study was released documenting an increase in teenage suicides since October 2003, when the Food and Drug Administration put “black box” warnings on antidepressants for children.

Ironically, it was during that same month in 2003 that my young daughter first started taking antidepressants and our family became convinced that proper medication can be a lifesaver.

My daughter was just starting third grade. Instead of thinking about her schoolwork and friends, she obsessed about ways to commit suicide. She would dutifully report to me her scary thoughts: “I’m thinking about jumping out of the car,” “I’m thinking about strangling myself with the seat belt.”

Some days, the thoughts came to her in such rapid succession that she couldn’t tell me fast enough. Her psychiatrist put her on medication right away and within the first month, the symptoms subsided.

It took a bit of experimentation to find the right combination of medications, but after six months, she was virtually symptom-free. She’s been that way ever since.

My daughter comes by her mental illness honestly. She inherited obsessive-compulsive disorder from me. OCD is an anxiety disorder that causes you to focus on your worst fear and obsess about it until it is hard to concentrate on anything else.

Not surprisingly, depression usually is closely followed by anxiety. All four of my daughter’s grandparents suffered from anxiety and depression. And almost everyone in our sprawling family is taking medication for their mental illness.

For our family, the medication is as restorative and necessary as insulin is for diabetics.

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